Rising Star of the Year 2011: St. JackChef Aaron Barnett grew up in a household of great cooks, which informed his cooking at Restaurant St. Jack. Barnett says it's fun to persuade someone to try something new, like tripe, pig's feet or frog legs.

As St. Jack chef Aaron Barnett tells it, the bouchon, a traditional Lyonnaise restaurant serving hearty dishes and plenty of wine, was born of necessity. Although much French butchery was performed in Lyon, the best cuts were always shipped north to Paris. Chefs in Lyon made do with what remained.

Using everything available, enjoying food and wine for their own sakes, making chicken liver mousse when life gives you chicken liver -- all those things make the bouchon pretty darned Portland, Barnett thinks.

"Making do" could be the motto at Clinton Street bouchon and patisserie St. Jack, The Oregonian's Rising Star for 2011.

By design, St. Jack has something for everyone. It's a bouchon, sure, and a large one by French standards, but everything here is more than meets the eye. Your waiter might have spent the morning picking your salad greens on his farm. Not one but three staff members are trained sommeliers. A line cook started out as a dishwasher, impressed Barnett and rose through the ranks. The pastry chef once worked at Daniel, a Michelin three-star restaurant in Manhattan, before she fell hard for Portland.

In the morning, you'll find cafe-goers drinking coffee and reading the paper at the pastry counter. The long dining table in the restaurant is raised to waist height and used to roll dough. A man stands near the kitchen entrance, his arm shoved halfway down a meat grinder. As the sun heads west, diners munch on light snacks or an open-faced salmon sandwich, perhaps with a glass of wine. As darkness gathers, the little white globe lamp above the night entrance, stenciled "St. Jack," flickers to life. Dinner is on. The pastry counter becomes a salad prep station, and the long table has long since been lowered, scrubbed and put back into service.

Barnett was born in Canada, but not where you might think. "Everybody wants me to be Québécois," he says. "But I'm from right in the middle, Alberta." He moved to Los Angeles when he was young, survived the culture shock and, after secondary education didn't take, committed to becoming a chef. He got a break at Lumière, the since-closed, high-end Vancouver, B.C., restaurant, then went to boot camp at San Francisco's Restaurant Gary Danko. He arrived in Portland four years ago, and was executive chef at 23Hoyt for more than two years, until the restaurant transitioned toward pub grub, and Barnett set out on his own.

His staff came together organically, Barnett says, and is made up mostly of acquaintances and old friends. Many stopped by before the restaurant opened in December to grab a paintbrush and lend a hand. Even Kurt Huffman, a St. Jack co-owner whose Midas touch has helped open Andy Ricker's Ping and Pok Pok Noi, Christopher Israel's Gr£ner and more, stopped by to pound nails.

It's definitely a group effort. Under host and sommelier Joel Gunderson's stewardship, St. Jack attempts to re-create the Lyonnaise tradition of buying wines by the barrel, some custom-made for St. Jack. Alyssa Rozos, who was sous pastry chef at New York's Daniel, preps pastries from a princess's dream -- pink raspberry macaroons, éclairs, and her after-meal signature: tiny, just-baked madeleines served warm and delicious. Bartender Kyle Webster brings a steady hand to the craft cocktail list, and he also built the French-themed playlist, which builds from old-timey 1920s French tunes through Serge Gainsbourg hits of the '60s before crescendoing into a mix of low-volume French pop and hip-hop.

St. Jack is local, for sure. Much of the produce is sourced locally, even if Barnett says, "Farm-to-table is so old. ... The next level is owning your own farm." What Barnett has created is more than just a perfect slice of Lyon in the heart of a buzzy Southeast Portland neighborhood -- it's a place where everyone feels welcome. Despite opening last December, St. Jack already feels as if it's been there for years.

Walk
into one of Lyon's 20-odd certified bouchons, and a waiter might drop a
carafe of wine and a large plate of terrine and bread on your table
before you order. That's not likely to happen at St. Jack, where service
leans toward the refined -- although offal makes an appearance -- and
dishes leave room for squeamish Western tastes. So alongside the
revelatory tablier de sapeur -- golden fried tripe with caper and red
onion mayonnaise -- you'll find simpler dishes including steak frites
and macaroni gratin.

Bargains: At St. Jack's afternoon "L'Happy
Hour" (4 to 5:30 p.m. Monday to Friday) you can order mussels with
shallots, garlic and fennel in a Pernod broth ($7) with a house cocktail
($6) or glass of wine ($5).